HP P9000 Provisioning for Mainframe Systems User Guide (AV400-96369, October 2011)

4 Configuring thin provisioning
Thin provisioning technology allows you to allocate virtual storage capacity based on anticipated
future capacity needs, using virtual volumes instead of physical disks.
Thin provisioning is an optional provisioning strategy for both open and mainframe systems. Thin
provisioning is implemented with Thin Provisioning Z by creating one or more Thin Provisioning Z
pools (THP pools) of physical storage space using multiple LDEVs. Then, you can establish virtual
THP volumes (THP V-VOLs) and connect them to the individual THP pools. In this way, capacity
can be randomly assigned on demand anywhere in the pool.
Thin Provisioning Z software is required to configure thin provisioning.
Thin Provisioning Z overview
Thin Provisioning Z is an advanced thin-provisioning software product that allows you to save
money on storage purchases and reduce storage management expenses.
You can operate Thin Provisioning Z using both Remote Web Console software and the RAID
Manager.
Thin provisioning requirements
Thin Provisioning Z license requirements
Using Thin Provisioning Z on the P9500 storage system requires the following:
• The license key installed on the Remote Web Console computer for Thin Provisioning Z. For
details about the license key or product installation, see the HP P9000 Remote Web Console
User Guide.
• If THP V-VOLs are used for the P-VOLs and S-VOLs of Business Copy Z, Continuous Access
Synchronous Z, Continuous Access Journal Z, or External Storage Access Manager, you will
need the Business Copy Z, Continuous Access Synchronous Z, or Continuous Access Journal
Z for the consumed pool capacity used by the P-VOLs and S-VOLs.
Pool requirements
A pool is a set of volumes reserved for storing Thin Provisioning Z write data.
RequirementsItems
Calculate pool capacity using the following formulas:Pool capacity
• capacity of the pool (MB) = total number of pages × 38 - 3800.
• total number of pages = Σ(floor(floor(pool-VOL number of blocks ÷
116) ÷ 672)) for each pool-VOL.
where floor( ) truncates the value calculated from the formula in parentheses after the decimal
point.
However, the upper limit of total capacity of all pools is 1.0 PB.
Up to 1024 volumes per pool.Max number of
pool-VOLs
An LDEV used as a pool-VOL cannot be used for any other purpose, including in another pool.
Up to a total of 128 pools per storage system. This is the total number of Thin Provisioning pools,
Thin Provisioning Z pools, and Snapshot pools.
Maximum number of
pools
Pool IDs (0 to 127) are assigned as pool identifiers.
You can increase pool-VOL capacity dynamically. Increasing capacity by one or more parity
groups is recommended.
Increasing capacity
46 Configuring thin provisioning